A favorite pastime among the mobile “creative class” in Seattle is complaining that our transportation systems are inferior to those in Vancouver, B.C., and Portland.
But recent news from the neighbors reveals them as anything but nirvana.
* Transit use in metro Portland dropped 1.1 percent in September to
November 2012 compared to a year earlier, even as national transit use
grew 2.6 percent. The Rose City has struggled with labor strife and
service cuts, as detailed here by Oregonian columnist Joseph
Rose. One result was MAX light-rail use dropped in Portland (which
ended its downtown free-rail zone) while bus use grew. Meanwhile in
Seattle, King County Metro gained 1.7 percent and carried 400,440
average weekday passengers in October compared to a year earlier,
despite eliminating the downtown free-bus zone Sept. 29. Sound Transit
gained 19 percent year-over-year, serving 100,935 weekday riders for bus
and rail combined.

The legal dispute between TriMet and the transit workers’ union over public access to negotiations remains undecided. “Last week, our attorneys conferred on how to get this question resolved quickly,” said Bruce Hansen, the Union’s president. That dispute centers around TriMet’s insistence that rider advocates, the press and the public be barred from the negotiations.

What puzzles the Union is why, when the parties’ attorneys are working together to get a quick resolution of this dispute, TriMet’s labor relations executive director, Randy Stedman, and general manager, Neil McFarlane, continue to insist on going forward with negotiations only if the Union will accept terms that violate state law.

“Another puzzler for us,” says union president Bruce Hansen, “is why the TriMet bargaining team intends to show up for negotiation sessions that they effectively have cancelled.” He notes that the Union has repeatedly given advance notice that it cannot accept the conditions TriMet management has placed on bargaining.